Monthly Archives: February 2022

Australian Avocado and Egg Toast

Posted on February 18, 2022 by pauldelancey

Australian Breakfast

AVOCADO AND EGG TOAST

INGREDIENTS

Spot the Volkswagen Beetle

2 eggs
2 slices sourdough bread
1 avocado
½ tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon fresh, chopped chives
⅛ teaspoon pepper

Serves 2. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add each egg to a ramekin or a cup that is not much larger than the egg. Add enough water to pot to cover egg. Bring water to boil using high heat. Gently slide eggs into boiling water. Poach eggs at high heat for 2 minutes for soft, runny egg yolks and for 5 minutes for eggs with firm yolks.
Remove eggs with slotted spoon and set aside.

Toast sourdough bread to your liking. While bread toasts, peel and remove pit from avocado. Add avocado to mixing bowl. Mash with potato masher or fork until avocado becomes creamy. Add lime juice, chives, and pepper. Mix with fork until well blended.

Top a sourdough slice with ½ of the mashed avocado. Spread avocado across bread. Press down with spoon slightly in the middle of the avocado mash. Place an egg in the depression. Repeat for the other sourdough slice.

TIDBITS

1) Australians love sports. They go crazy over soccer or football as they call it. I even played there in league soccer when I was little. Every year, the town where I lived, Earlwood, shut the town down for the annual soccer parade. I was the proud standard bearer for the Green Grasshopper. *Swells with pride*

2) Aussies also love cricket. I understand a lot of it. However, there are gaps in my knowledge. If these gaps ever come up in conversation, I will nod sagely in agreement. This is a good tactic for all sorts of topics and I’ve used it to good effect.

3) Australians also play a lot of tennis and rugby. Some of them even play baseball and American Rules Football. However, a new sport is taking the splendid country by storm. It’s called Hide the Volkswagentm Beetle. Two teams of four have one hour to hide a Beetle or Bug. Then the teams race to find the other players’ hidden Beetle. The team that wins this part get two points. You also gain a point for having the most creative camouflage. The photo above shows a Beetle hidden in a giant avocado and egg toast.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Realistic Goals Versus Dreaming

Posted on February 17, 2022 by pauldelancey

 

I’m doing physical therapy for my lower back. They gently stretch my muscles and have me do exercises.

They do good work. See the picture below.

 

 

i

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what I’d like to be able to do by next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All I want to do is to bend my head and left leg backward so that a golden Easter egg nestles between them all while balancing on the tip of my other foot.

Is that too much to ask?

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

Categories: motivational | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

When Scammers Merge

Posted on February 16, 2022 by pauldelancey

The world of commerce becomes ever more cutthroat by the day. The motto of money is “Go Big or Die.” Small businesses simply can’t compete against the resources of mega-corporations. Sometimes small businesses just go bankrupt. Sometimes the big companies merely buy out the smaller ones. Mostly though, companies merge to form one bigger unit. Airlines merge all the time. So do accounting firms. And now, so do scammers.

Face it, the scammers’ audience shrinks every year as more and more people become hip to scams. There’s simply not enough innocent customers out there to justify keeping the same level of scam callers and spammers on the payrolls. So the scammers are merging. Expect to come across the scam shown below very soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iranian Sholeh Zard (Saffron Rice Pudding)

Posted on February 15, 2022 by pauldelancey

Iranian Dessert

SHOLEH ZARD
(Saffron Rice Pudding)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
6 cups water (2 teaspoons more later)
½ teaspoon saffron or turmeric
2 teaspoons water
¼ cup butter
¼ cup rosewater
1¾ cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons slivered almonds or pistachios

SPECIAL UTENSILS

colander
3 quart no-stick pot
8 ramekins or dessert cups

Serves 8. Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION

Wash rice thoroughly in colander. (This removes the starch.) Add 6 cups water to large no-stick pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add rice. Stir with spoon. Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 1 hour or until rice become completely tender. Stir just enough to prevent burning.

Add saffron and 2 teaspoons water to small cup. Stir. Add saffron/water, butter, rosewater, and sugar to pot. Simmer at low heat for 40 minutes until mixture becomes a pudding. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

Ladle pudding into ramekins. Garnish with cinnamon and slivered almonds or pistachios.

TIDBITS

1) Life is hard, full or minor irritants. Life is very hard, filled with disasters.

2) If there were only same way or some phrase we could utter to make things magically better.

3) There is! It used to be “Abra cadabra” until it passed its Use By Date.

4) Now we must say, “Sholeh Zard.” Okay, I’ll go first. “I want a Mercedes(tm). Sholeh zard!” Wow, a Mercedes just appeared in my driveway. Now, it’s your turn to say the magic words.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Evil Things – Printers

Posted on February 14, 2022 by pauldelancey

Evil incarnate

Two days, I assembled tax forms. I entered some data as well. All was right with the world. Indeed, the bluebirds sang.

Not so much yesterday. The bluebirds fell to cussing as evil stalked the land.

In the form of a printer. My previous printer, which was as a goodly a printer that could be expected. It would read both sides of a two-sided document. Then it would scan or copy the forms, depending on the chore. The bluebirds sang.

But it died. The bluebirds cried. I supposedly bought the replacement model. It cost a bit more.

Little did I know that Satan had breathed a bit of his evil spirit into the new printer. It didn’t scan both sides of a page! That’s so important to me. And what the heck, how can a replacement model, a more expensive model, cost more and not do as much.

The evil onslaught continued. It took me 8.5 hours to get the printer to do any sort of scanning at all. Apparently, Hewlett Packard had not seen fit to provide 8, eight!, necessary updates. So, now I can scan, but I have to do manual steps and this takes much longer. We are living in perilous times, gentle readers. Watch your printer. Just don’t show fear. They can sense fear. When they do, they’ll ruin your print job and steal your soul. Take care.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

 

Categories: observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Unbridled Fun – Doing Taxes

Posted on February 13, 2022 by pauldelancey

Yes, dear readers, that’s right. I’m doing taxes. I could do research and write up a longer blog, but I’m having difficulty tearing my self away from tax documents, gathering expenses, etc. It’s such fun! There will be a longer post tomorrow. In the meantime, behave yourselves.

Why look at anything else?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: Unbridled fun | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fun Festivals – International Festival of Animated Objects

Posted on February 12, 2022 by pauldelancey

Sluggish after overindulging with Canada’s poutine? It’s delicious, who could not? Then have someone take you to Calgary, Alberta, International Festival of Animated Objects. Puppet shows and performances with other animated thingys touch on dark, troubling themes. Even though, many of the shows are supposed to be family friendly, it all seems rather ominous.

The Festival of Animated Objects (FAO) supports the arts of puppetry, mask, and animated objects. Live films are right out. The Festival says don’t even try.

The non-profit group Calgary Animated Objects Society (CAOS)- what a cool name – produces Animovies with support from The International Festival of Animated Objects Society. Films are projected onto a grain elevator. A historic one, no less.

Programming includes live performances, screenings, lectures, workshops, and exhibitions for all ages. Don’t forget to see the historic grain elevator.

The event schedule for 2021 is easy to find online. So, it’s easy to see what you missed. The schedule for 2022 is much harder to find. Why? I don’t know. I did find a website, for the event?, listed on one blog, but I had to sign onto the site and I was worried that I might have been committing myself to appear for this year’s festival. A little later, I tried finding that webpage again, but failed. Clearly, you have to want to go to this festival. But if you do, it is certain this is the animated-object festival to go to. See other devoted puppeteers and animated-object film producers. The talent is here. The contacts are here. Immerse yourself in your art and thrive.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: fun festivals | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mason Jar Strawberry Ice Cream

Posted on February 11, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

MASON JAR STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS

2 cups heavy whipping cream
5½ tablespoons sugar
2¼ teaspoons vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon salt
2 cups whole strawberries, fresh or frozen

Makes 3 cups. Takes 15 minutes to make and 3 hours to firm in freezer.).

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor or blender
3 cup Mason jar or other airtight container

PREPARATION

Puree strawberries. Add all ingredients to Mason jar. Make sure that the lid to Mason jar is screwed on tightly. Shake jar for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens to the consistency of batter. Put jar in freezer. Let sit for 3 hours or until firm.

TIDBITS

1) Mason Jar Strawberry is fantastic. It’s so yummy. Only people who hate: whipping cream, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and strawberries will dislike this dessert. That means billions and billions of people love it. People have adored this dessert for millennia. Lands without strawberries conquered surrounding peoples in a never ending quest to find wild strawberries. This is how the Roman Empire and the Mongol Empire, among others, grew to be so big.

2) Alas, the Romans and the Mongols despite their mighty armies never did manage to find, much less conquer, a land with strawberries. Their subjects grew sullen and defiant. Finally, their peoples rose up and overthrew their non-strawberry-providing rulers. (Okay, with a little help from invading foreign armies.)

3) Rulers then sent expeditions to find strawberries. This is really how Columbus sold Queen Isabella on finding the Americas. The idea that the Spanish went exploring to find gold was just a cover. The conquistadors wanted the real wealth, strawberries, just to themselves. Seeing the Spaniards’ success, other nations sent our their explorers to find their own La Fresado, The Land of Strawberries. Pretty darn quick, the entire globe got explored. International trade boomed between the old countries and the new strawberry-growing lands. We owe it all to the yummy strawberry.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Uncle Sam Wants You to Signal

Posted on February 10, 2022 by pauldelancey

Way to go. We’ve ticked off Uncle Sam.  Too many people are not buying the blinker package when they purchase a car. Not signaling before a turn is dangerous. It’s also rude to the drivers around you. And Uncle Sam has had enough of your shenanigans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: Uncle Sam Says | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wanda Wunder Wonders About Holes

Posted on February 9, 2022 by pauldelancey

Wanda wonders about the things we’re too afraid to wonder out loud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: Wanda Wunder | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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